Previews

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Naughty Dog's action platformer just keeps on truckin' as it gets closer to release, and we've got the video to prove it!

Spiffy:

Most of our issues with prior builds of an already-promising game seem to have been fixed.

Iffy:

We'll still have to see how the final product turns out once it releases in six weeks.

As the PlayStation 3 hits its second holiday season, few titles have gotten as much fanfare as Naughty Dog's Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The adventure title has been as much of a showcase for the platform as Resistance: Fall of Man was during last year's console launch. Of course, the two titles have their differences across genres, but both are holiday flagship titles from two of SCEA's leading exclusive development houses. While we've tracked the progress of Uncharted for some time, we were presented with not only a few new levels to try out last week, but with a new enhancement to the game experience: a prototype of the Dual Shock 3.

For those of you who (like us) are thinking about importing Dual Shock 3s from Japan, the rumble is a very welcome feature, and unlike many of the existing PS3 titles on the market, Uncharted won't need a patch. Instead, as Line Producer Sam Thompson told us, rumble support will be included on the Blu-ray disc. No need to wait for the US launch next spring to feel the effects of gunshots on the game's hero, Nathan Drake.

For those who haven't heard much about the game, you'll be stepping into the shoes of treasure hunter Nathan Drake as he searches for clues to the lost city of El Dorado, which legendary historical figure (or pirate, if you're not British) Sir Francis Drake was in search of. The journey eventually takes you to a lost Spanish colony somewhere in the Pacific. Both Thompson and Naughty Dog Lead Designer Richard Lemarchand stopped by our offices to show off two new stages, The Customs House and Catacombs, which you'll be able to watch video footage from right here. The Customs House is an abandoned facility from the colonial era, while the Catacombs will take you into subterranean quarters in search of more clues.

The biggest difference we noticed from our last hands-on with the game (we played the same build between Sony's Croatia event last month and Tokyo Game Show) was that we got killed a lot less. While we're fairly adept gamers, we noticed that the enemy AI has been toned down from "11" to tolerably tough. It also appears that just before the game went into beta testing a few weeks ago, the team decided to scrap the dynamic difficulty that it had been plotting out from the beginning. To be honest, after pumping slugs into bullet sponges and taking more damage than them, we weren't sure how it would all come together in the end product. Given the wild imbalances in previous builds we played, we're glad that the team has opted for more traditional difficulty settings, as it wasn't coming together as well as one might have hoped.

Another important and very evident last-minute addition that we noticed was the implementation of destructible cover. According to Lemarchand, it had been on the table, but the team was on the fence in regard to incorporating the mechanic into gameplay. We noticed it during our jaunt in Customs House. We'd mentioned in past coverage that Naughty Dog has done a great deal in the animation department to capture Nathan's emotional state throughout the adventure, especially fear, as he hides behind bullet-chipped walls. Now it looks like said walls also run the risk of dissolving under a hailstorm of ammo, so it'll be up to you to play wisely.